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How to make Khaub Piaj - homemade rice noodle chicken soup

Posted by Annie on Sunday, 12 June 2011

This soup is great to eat on cold winter days or just days when you are feeling under the weather. It can be enjoyed with various condiments such as fried garlic, chili paste, cilantro, green onion, fish sauce, etc ... Today, I will show how to make a simple rice noodle soup with chicken.

Serves 4 servings

Stock Ingredients:

1 cup chicken pieces (you can use whatever pieces you want)

5 cups water (you can add more later if you want it less thick)

1 stalk lemongrass (chopped into 3 pieces) - optional

3 chopped green onion for garnish - optional

1/2 tsp salt

Noodle Ingredients:

1 cup rice flour

1 cup glutinous rice flour

1 cup hot boiling water

tapioca flour for dusting (keeping it from sticking)

Making the stock:

Boil the chicken, salt, & lemonstalk in the water.

Scoop out any foam that may be floating in the water.

Cook for about 10-15 minutes. Cooking time will depend on how big you chopped up your chicken pieces.

Take the chicken pieces out and shred them with a fork until you get small pieces. Set the chicken aside in a bowl.

Add 1 cup boiling hot water slowly into the mixture and mix it together until incorporated. You will have to use your hands to knead the dough. If it is too dry, add 1 tsp water. If it gets too sticky, add a few tsp of tapioca starch (blue one).

On a large surface, lightly flour with tapioca starch.

With a rolling pin, flatten out the dough. Add tapioca starch so it doesn't get too sticky.

Cut the noodle into long strings.

Putting it all together:

Carefully place the noodles into the stock and boil for 5 minutes.

Then add back the chicken pieces. Add more water if it gets too thick. Be careful not to stir the noodles too much or else they will break.

Cook an additional 5 minutes. Then it's ready to serve!

Add any condiments of your choice!

Modifications to this recipe - time saver!

If you have a KitchenAid mixer or similar, mix the flours and water with the dough mixer.

If you have a KitchenAid noodle cutter, use the fetticine blade to cut the dough into strips.

Awesome site you have here but I was wanting to know if you knew of any community forums that cover the same topics talked about here? I'd really love to be a part of online community where I can get feed-back from other experienced people that share the same interest. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Appreciate it!

so do you use the whole packet of the flours or just half...trying to find a different way like your way of the powders...but not sure...theres soo many different kinds...i used only the red kind and the green deer kind...howd you use the green elephant kind and diidnt stick...your way seems easier...thanks will definely try but do we use the whole bag of the red and green flours?

Wow didn't know you have this here, I definitely will try this soon. I always wanted to cook homemade kaub piaj.So if we want more, do we just use the whole red and blue bag? I believe each bag contain 2 cups of powder.

You can increase the flour amounts. I've seen some people use the whole bag of red, whole bag of green, and a whole bag of water (haha yes water, they just fill one of the bags with hot water). If you do try it, let me know if it works out or if I need to rewrite my instructions!

Thanks so much for posting this! Now, I have a question about the sauce that goes along with this dish. It's mostly oil, with tons of garlicky, Hmong pepper, goodness. It's sooo delicious but I'm not quit sure how to make it. I hope you know what I'm talking about and if so, can you make a post on how to make it? I think the oily sauce makes this dish what it is!

Hi Annie,This is Valerie. I saw your food page on youtube and I just want to say thank you so much for your time in showing all this. I love the rice noodles but don't really know how to make it from scratch. I think I try making it once but it was not very good. I will try your recipe soon. But I was wondering if I want to make the whole bag, what would the measurements be? Did I ask the right question? lol. If I want to make a bigger batch would I use up a whole bag of red and green flour bag? And just use the blue bag for not sticking to each other? And how much water would I use in this case? Thank you.

If you use a whole bag of rice flour and a whole bag of glutinous rice flour, that equates to about 1 bag of hot boiling water. You can use the empty bag to measure out the water. But add the water slowly, if it gets too sticky just add some tapioca starch.

The stickiness was probably from the glutinous rice flour (green bag), not tapioca flour (blue bag). A less stickly version would be to just use rice flour and tapioca flour, elminating glutinous completely. The portion would be 2 cups rice flour, 1 cup tapioca flour for less sticky. Another stickier version (but probably not as sticky as Annie's) would be 2 cups tapioca flour, 1 cup rice flour. For those who don't know, glutinous rice flour is essentially sticky rice powder thus why it creates an element of sticky.

Hi Annie! Thank you for your recipe. I never knew how to make Khaub Piaj until I found your website. I made it for my daughter when she had her wisdom teeth removed. It tasted great! Once again, thank you, and merry Christmas!

Thanks for the recipe. I tried this yesterday and it turned out to be a disaster. Does the water have to be boiling hot and why? I tried whole bags of rice flour, glutinous rice flour and warm water. The product I got was liquid. No dough for me to knead and cut into strips. I'll try again tonight with boiling hot water.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I 'm not a cook myself, but was wondering if you would share some thoughts on this khaub piaj recipe with me. I recently threw a party and had khaub piaj made for my family, cousins, relatives, and love ones. One of my cousin made khaub piaj and we kept the khaub piaj in the rice warmer from the time it was cooked till the party is over and the khaub piaj noodle was broken up short and watery after 5hrs. So the questions I have for you on your recipe:Question 1: For each long string of noodle, do they break into shorter pieces just by the pull of gravity when holding the strings up?Question 2: If the khaub piaj is ready to eat, what do they look like after 5hrs of sitting in the cooking pot under constant low heat for keeping it warm.I don't know how to make khaub piaj and wouldn't be able to tell you what or how much of each power she used to make her khaub piaj. But would like to try your recipe if I have a chance.Ntxhais Vaj

Annie, have you (or anyone you know) ever tried using the instant noodles for this dish instead of making it from scratch? I tried a batch once and it just didnt turn out right or maybe I didn't cook it right. If you do know of any, could you please let me know. I know from scratch is much better, but some days I just dont have the time to do it all by hand.

I've always wanted to learn how to make this and was so glad to see a recipe posted. I tried cooking it for the first time a couple of months ago, which was kind of a nightmare, but have already made it a couple of times since and consider myself a pro now!These tips might help those of you that were like me who have never, ever worked with this type of dough or made their own noodles before: 1) once you've poured the hot water into the flour mixture, DO NOT TOUCH IT, it is HOT, HOT, HOT! (Common sense? Yes. But when you're trying to follow a recipe and am concentrating so hard to make sure you don't miss a step, commen sense gets thrown out the window.) Work it with a strong plastic mixing utensil, then let it cool off before you start trying to work with it. After cooling off for a bit (10-15 minutes) the dough isn't as soft and is easier to work with for us newbies. 2) If you can't find your rolling pin, wrap your pepper smasher in saran wrap and use it instead, it gets the job done and saves you a trip to the store to purchase a new rolling pin. 3) I don't have a noodle maker, so the first time I made this recipe I used a small knife to cut the noodles. That was a long process, especially since I didn't really know what I was doing! The second time I made it, I used my pizza cutter...GENIUS! Sometimes improvisation leads to amazing things !Keep the recipes coming Annie!